MACOM, a leading supplier of semiconductor products, will demonstrate its Linear Drive 100Gbps per lane optical links at the Optical Networking and Communications Conference 2023 (OFC) in San Diego this week. The live demonstration of the optical link, using MACOM PURE DRIVE Transimpedance Amplifiers (TIA) and Laser Drivers and Broadcom’s Tomahawk 5 switch chip, will take place at MACOM’s booth #3927 and Broadcom’s booth #6425.
A Linear Drive architecture eliminates the Digital Signal Processor (DSP) from pluggable optical modules while lowering power consumption, improving signal latency and reducing cost. With a Linear Drive link, the switch ASIC consolidates the digital signal processing while Linear Laser drivers and Linear TIAs provide the compensation required for electro-optic conversion. This interoperability demonstration by Broadcom and MACOM leverages:
- Broadcom’s Tomahawk 5 switch ASIC
- MACOM PURE DRIVE Laser Drivers and TIAs
“The MACOM PURE DRIVE chipset is specifically designed to provide leading high-performance linear compensation, enabling the Linear Drive architecture,” said Ryan Latchman, Vice President, High-Performance Connectivity Product Marketing, MACOM. “These are exciting results, and we are pleased to share our Linear Drive technology with the industry.”
“The optical networking industry has had a long tradition of optimizing interconnect to reduce latency, power and cost in order to service global needs,” said Peter Del Vecchio, data center switch product manager, Core Switching Group, Broadcom. “This optimization becomes increasingly important for AI/ML clusters. Our collaboration with MACOM represents an important step in realizing this optimization at 100G/lane leveraging the Tomahawk 5 SerDes capability.”
Click here to learn more about MACOM's PURE DRIVE Transimpedance Amplifiers (TIA).
Click here to learn more about Broadcom’s Tomahawk 5 switch chip.
